


Bid Me a Long Farewell

by QuillerQueen



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, F/M, GoT au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-12-07 18:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18238706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillerQueen/pseuds/QuillerQueen
Summary: Two runaways' paths cross in a war-ridden Westeros, and a new path is revealed that leads where neither has ever planned to go. New perils await even as the past, too, starts catching up with them.





	1. Prologue

One comes from the land of lemons; one comes from forests of pine.

She flees in the night, a rider in the dark with nothing but a saddlebag of supplies and a babe in arms. The shifting sands of the desert deliver her from the spiteful Sands seeking to smother the flame of her son’s young life. 

He flies towards the Night, a shadow darting from a lap of luxury towards a higher calling. An iron will leads him from the wolfswood, though wherever he goes his lord father’s wrath will follow.

Rivers to ford, mountains to climb, plains to cross--all while the seven kingdoms are being torn to shreds by warring factions. Wolves, dragons, lions, stags--all coveting a single, spiked, metal chair. One wrong move, and a blade comprising that chair cuts short the life of its master--an oddly fitting reminder of the price of power.

But the travellers have no wish to play the game of thrones.

One from the sun-soaked shores as south as south goes; the other from far-up north where winter always seems but a breath away.

How unlikely for their paths to ever cross?

Yet before long, they will.

And may the old gods and the new watch over them.


	2. From the Sands of Sunspear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Prince is dead, but Regina's alive. To hold on to her bare life and her son's, she flees Dorne and heads north in search for a pocket of peace in the war-ridden Seven Kingdoms.

They are ever shifting.

Like the sands of time they trickle through the rich history of Dorne—a steady, unavoidable reminder of the impermanence of things.

The Sands of Dorne are like the sands in the central desert—woven into the fabric of the land, constant and uncountable. Some are lost to the ages; others wage wars to imprint themselves in the memory of future generations of Dornishmen. Though their birth marks them, it’s not with the same blight the other six kingdoms curse their bastards with.

As the rolling sands of the deserts, so for Sands, too, there is strength in numbers.

A single grain of sand stings in the eye; a pit of Snakes has a sting deadlier than any horned viper coiled upon the sun-soaked rocks.

Regina’s childhood bedtime stories, though few and far between, were invariably cautionary tales, and they were positively swarming with serpents. Not of survival in the wild, but of plots and political intrigue, of personal feuds and the fine art of vengeance.

What would Mother say now—would she be proud of Regina’s carefully orchestrated escape, or would she sneer at the alliance her daughter’s made to achieve that end?

It matters not—Cora is dead.

Regina is alive.

And she needs to focus if she intends to stay that way.

Henry squirms against her chest, his vocal discontent nothing but a whimper now. He’s cried himself hoarse, his wails dying down just as they rode past the weathered stone marking the turn to Lemonwood. Regina’s childhood home lay just a few miles to the south, but they’d have found no refuge there. If anyone ever came to suspect the mangled body at the foot of the tower wasn’t really hers, or that the blood soaking the prince’s swaddling clothes wasn’t really Henry’s, Lemonwood would be the first place the enemy would come looking for them.

* * *

_ Sequestered in the Tower of the Sun, Regina awaited the Sand Snake coming to take a life. Depending on who first ascended the stairs, there was more than one—including her son’s and her own—hanging in the balance. _

_ The pathetic whimpering wasn’t coming from Henry’s crib. _

_ “Stop that,” Regina hissed, and the handmaid slumped in the corner trembled but obeyed. _

_ Steps approached, and Regina’s grip around the dagger tightened as the door opened and closed behind a hooded figure. A firm tug at the cape with one hand, and a shock of red hair tumbled forth; blood dripped from the dagger brandished in the other and pooled at Zelena Sand’s feet. _

_ “It is done,” she said, her eyes hard. _

_ Regina’s knees nearly gave way as her heart burst forth, knocking violently against the confines of her ribcage now that it was free of other constraints. _

_ Her husband was dead. _

_ Leopold had been cut down by the dagger in her sister’s hand, the dragger  _ drip-dripping  _ his blood still. Had he suffered? Had he begged for mercy? Had he gone from begging for his life to aching for a swift end? Knowing her sister’s nature and proclivity to poisons, those were all likely scenarios. That should probably not please Regina so—even if her present situation weren’t so delicate. _

_ Zelena had been the one to get to Regina first, before the other Sand Snakes, who surely would have put a spear through her by now. Perhaps Zelena would honour their agreement, and Regina would yet go free. _

_ “Thank you,” she said, getting her bearings, and: “I’m ready for the next phase.” _

_ “Are you, Regina?” Zelena cocked her head, scrutinising her with narrowed eyes. “Do you not regret having your husband murdered? Do you not fear I might do the same to you and your precious son, now that you’ve served your purpose?” _

_ “You know I wished for Leopold’s death from the day we were married.” It was true, from that day on Regina couldn’t be sure if she wished more for his death or her own. Hiding behind his reputation as a kind, goodly ruler, he never had a kind word to spare her, never a hint of consideration—as long as his thirst was slaked, he cared nothing if she was left starved and hollow. _

_ The one good thing that came from their marriage was Henry, and Regina was not about to lose him. _

_ “You know I’ll die to protect my son.” _

_ “Much good that’d do him,” Zelena snorts, eyeing the childless crib. Henry was sleeping in his sling fastened to the bottom of the large bed frame, hidden by silk sheets overflowing on the sides—even Zelena didn’t know that, but she’d clearly expected Regina to hide him away. _

_ “I’m not killing you tonight, sis,” she drawled. “But you must disappear. Regina of House Dalt and Henry of House Martell die here tonight. You must vanish, you hear me? Never to set foot in Dorne. Never to be anyone of note in the Seven Kingdoms. Never even think about taking a side in the war for the Iron Throne.” _

_ “I don’t want to play the game, Zelena, I never have.” Oh how Cora would berate her for that lack of ambition, from childhood into adulthood she’d hammered into Regina the need for one’s trajectory to keep moving up, always up, higher. Regina’d had other aspirations though, had never coveted power, and besides: “Even if I did, I’d never put Henry’s life at stake.” _

_ Zelena rolled her eyes, rounding the empty crib and proceeding to wipe the blood into the soft blanket abandoned there. From the folds of her cloak she retrieved the blood-soaked swaddling clothes Regina had stashed in Leopold’s chambers the night before after the spent prince had fallen asleep on the crumpled, stained sheets. _

_ “You’ve always been sentimental, Regina. It’s a miracle you still draw breath. But someone must die in your stead, remember?” _

_ “I remember,” Regina gritted, her voice steadier than her heart. “I’ll do it myself.” _

_ The handmaid in the corner screamed in terror as Regina drove the dagger straight through her heart. _

_ “Take the boy and run,” Zelena ordered, then grabbed the traitorous, lifeless maid by the hair and smashed her face against the wall, reducing it to a pulp beyond recognition. _

_ The body flew, plummeted from the Tower of the Sun, and shattered at its foot. _

_ Regina flew, fled from the royal palace with her son held close and another piece of her heart chipped off to pay the price of freedom. _

_ Away, away... _

* * *

 

They can’t go home.

They have no home.

Dorne can’t shelter them; the Seven Kingdoms may not be able to conceal them if anyone ever finds out they’ve escaped with their lives. There’s a world beyond Westeros if it ever comes to that...but that would involve relying on the honesty of a seafaring captain to grant them safe passage on a ship full of men of ill-repute—a risk she’d rather not take if she can help it. But that’s a concern for another day.

Now they must ride.

The red mare she chose from the stables is not hers, not the trusty, beloved companion of her youth, for his disappearance might  have brewn suspicion. This one is slim and swift enough, one of the best of the sand steed breed. Hours since their departure, she shows not the slightest hint of fatigue so far.

The stars begin to fade, and Henry’s weak squeals call for Regina’s attention. She fumbles one-handedly with her gown, with Henry’s wrap—a well-practised routine, but her little prince isn’t cooperating. He’s hungry, but he’s also tired, and thus it’s up to Regina to guide his mouth to her breast. His appetite is lukewarm at best. So early into what will be a long and strenuous journey, this makes Regina’s stomach twist with worry.

“I’m here, Henry. Shh… We’ll be all right, I promise.”

* * *

 

They ride on with the rising sun on her cheek and clouds of dust at their back, and no single final destination in mind. Time passes at a different pace here, and she’s lost count of the days twice over. A desert of sand and stone, a scorching sun, and a skyful of stars are their only companions for what might as well be eternity.

The Red Dunes in all their naked splendour evoke a past long gone, one that may almost belong to someone else. Perhaps to a girl with loose locks of hair, unbound yet by the shackles of marriage, galloping up and down modest hills or along foaming coastal waters. Perhaps to a stable hand from Hellholt who told the girl many tales of adventure from his desert home.

She thinks of Daniel often, of their young love and the moment her mother punished them for it by squeezing the life out of him with her bare hands; but nowadays she mostly thinks of what he’d taught her about navigating the wastelands.

Henry doesn’t thrive in the arid heat. The occasional angry shrieks have ceased, and he barely cries now, merely lets our dry heaving sobs until that, too, becomes too exhausting. With rations so meagre, Regina’s milk is dwindling by the hour, and she might soon lose the only form of nourishment her son relies on. She’d gladly starve herself so that he can eat, but it doesn’t work that way—she must feed herself first if she wants to feed him.

How perverted is the lavishness of court? For all the lack of affection and sense of security in her life, Regina’s never lacked for food. The gardens around their holdfast were fertile, and the orchards she so loved, the pride of her house and of Dorne, bore the tart fruit all of Westeros baked into delicious cakes while Regina ate it straight from the tree.

There are no lemons here, no hares to snare or berries to pick. Only a sea of sand, red as the sun sinking into the dunes. Only desert, and the faint smell of rotten eggs that leads her straight to the source—the lazy, yellowish Brimstone, a sight for sore eyes but noxious and impossible to drink.

They follow the river at a distance, foraying to its banks when the sun is highest in the white-hot sky, to drive a dagger through snakes and lizards hiding in the sparse shade of weathered rocks. Regina roasts them for dinner and collects their skins to fill with water once they reach a village on the way to Hellholt.

They arrive at dusk in what is barely more than a dozen tents pitched in a circle. Chances of her being recognised are modest in her present state, but she’s still set on leaving at first light. She ventures to the well in the centre of the circle fighting a growing sense of doom at being thus surrounded. No one stops her approach or indeed emerges from the tents, though she can feel eyes following her and catches flaps closing when she turns to look.

The water is dirty, but she still has charcoal left and there’s plenty of sand and gravel around. She sacrifices a strip of her gown to improvise a filter. Her horse, entirely parched, refuses to leave the spot. After they’ve drunk their fill, she bathes Henry with a cloth, and watches him come alive at the cool sensation of it.

He’s gurgling away happily, waving his little fists in the air, grabbing clumsily at the strand of hair falling across her face—and for the first time in forever, Regina laughs.

“Welcome back, my little prince,” she coos to the babe with tears of exhaustion and relief wearing a path down her dirty cheeks.

At night, she dreams with her eyes open, one arm around Henry, clutching her dagger in her free hand.

She dreams not of what could be, but of what once was. Games of catch with her father in the spiderweb of canals supplying Lemonwood’s orchards with water, and riding saddleless over dunes and waves. Monotonous hours of grooming and perpetual lectures aimed to fix the endless list of flaws standing in the way of the spectacular match Cora was planning to make for her unruly daughter. The nightmarish proposal from a recently widowed Prince Leopold, and the unsettling look he exchanged with Cora when she said yes in Regina’s stead. There was history there, between a commoner’s daughter and a Martell heir, and her mother couldn’t deny it if she tried. She didn’t even try.

_ The road to power is steep and slippery, Regina. One must use what tools one has to advance. One must remove any obstacles in one’s way. _

And she did mean  _ any  _ obstacles. Even a child—Zelena—that came at an inopportune moment, from an unsuitable man. Even that, anything really, to ensnare Leopold, still a bachelor then and Prince of Dorne—but Cora’s ploy fell short, and he married another. That didn’t stop her mother from pursuing the ambition of establishing a royal line—eighteen years later, using Regina as her pawn.

Cora stopped at nothing to reach her goals, never tired, never gave up.

That, at least, is a lesson Regina intends to carry with her.

That, and Henry’s fist curled tightly around her finger, is what drives her forth, towards Prince’s Pass, where blending into a group of merchants she crosses the borders of the only land she ever knew, and leaves Dorne forever behind.

* * *

The mighty castle of Sunspear at the southernmost tip of the Seven Kingdoms sprawls over a town of mud and straw, with its rounded shapes, domed turrets, and whitewashed polygonal walls adorned with carvings, paintings, and sculptures to please the eye.

This keep, on the other hand, with its walls thick and solid as if they’d grown out of the rock it’s perched on, is nothing like Sunspear, just as the fertile lands of the Reach are worlds removed from the rocky, arid landscape of Dorne.

It is unspeakably gorgeous here, green as far as the eye can see with the bluish ribbons of the Mander and the Cockleswhent meeting and merging into one just beneath the castle walls. It’s all gentle slopes and golden fields heavy with crops, vast skies with a friendly sun and pleasant rains that refresh body and soul. The air smells of ripe apples and the grass tickles her bare feet as she toils away in the orchard with a basket strapped to her back and a rosy-cheeked Henry wrapped snug against her front.

Regina loves it.

There’s one glaring fault though—it’s too close to Dorne.

They can’t stay, not for long anyway. The pay she’ll have earned when harvest is over should suffice to somewhat replenish her resources before they journey further north. Until then, they might as well enjoy their little piece of bliss.

It ends before they’ve the chance to settle in.

The lord of the keep returns one afternoon, with a booming voice and a boisterous retinue of lordlings, just as the apple-pickers are taking a brief break in the yard. Regina feels it before she sees it—the familiar sensation of cool slime spilling over her skin and raising gooseflesh in its wake. She’s had the misfortune of catching someone’s lecherous eye—the kind of thing that’s only ever brought doom.

Sweat beads cold on her brow as she gathers Henry up from the ground to his loud protests—he’s been avidly tracking the fluttering movements of a purple butterfly.

_ Run, Regina. _

Her gut is insistent; her gut knows what to do.

“Lord Fossoway requests a word,” says a voice near her ear, and Regina gasps. She’s never seen this man, this messenger sent for her to please some lordling’s whim, but his familiar drawl betrays him as a fellow Dornishman. Suddenly she’s facing a twofold danger.

_ Think, Regina. Think fast. _

“Let me put him down first,” she says, bouncing a mewling Henry in her arms, with a smile so strained it hurts almost as much as the hammering of her heart in a chest that seems to have shrunk to half its normal size. “So that the lords can have words with me undisturbed.”

It takes every ounce of self-control in her not to break into a run as she returns to the dim, narrow room she shares at night with half a dozen women. She’s been preparing for this, to beat a hasty retreat should anything go awry, and so she grabs her bundled belongings from under the bed and sneaks out through the kitchen window and into the woods, praying that the red mare she’d left there to fend for herself be safe and whole to sweep them away before her ruse is discovered and angry men sent to hunt her down.

They head north at a desperate gallop, as far away from Cider Hall as possible—away, too, from the Reach, that old enemy of Dorne that provided much too short a respite in Regina’s hour of need.

* * *

Regina has always had a fascination with maps.

As a child she’d get lost for hours in fantastical tales of far-away lands—places where dragons once dwelled, and a lone island where unicorns still do. As a young girl constrained by her mother’s unforgiving upbringing, she’d find refuge in the library, where she’d escape to the jungles of Sothoyros or to tropical islands scattered across the Summer Sea. Merely by dragging her finger across the painted surface, she’d be instantly transported wherever her heart desired, from the stormy coasts of Dragonstone to the snow-capped forests of the North, where cool flakes drift from a frozen sky like icy feathers.

This ardent passion for maps turned into an obsession after her marriage. Regina started to study the Seven Kingdoms for purposes other than escapism—just in case she might one day actually escape. She browsed through trade maps detailing the resources each kingdom possessed. She pondered military maps, learning about strategic points, strengths and weaknesses in each kingdom. She drank it all in like a drowning woman, stashing away knowledge, equipping herself with information to wield when the time came for her and Henry to run for their lives.

She knows the Riverlands are tragically indefensible, that they are doomed to perpetual raids from the Iron Islands to the west and invading armies from every other side, with all the natural borders of advantage in their neighbours’ control. Perhaps there are pockets of land where she and Henry could hide, but they can’t be anywhere near major roads or holdfasts if they don’t want to risk being recognised. A Dornish prince and princess would be a powerful bargaining chip in this raging war, and Regina has every intention to avoid capture.

High Heart seems a worthy candidate for a humble abode far from prying eyes. It’s a reasonable choice not only due to the hill’s elevated position in an otherwise flat landscape but because few people dare venture there. Tales of ghosts, the hauntings of murdered Children of the Forest, and a resident woods witch are enough to keep most away. Regina is undeterred by tall tales—she has far more to fear from actual flesh-and-blood men than some apparition from myth and folklore.

She never does find out if there’s even a grain of truth to the tales. She never reaches the hilltop with its famed crown of weirwood stumps, nor does the hill provide the refuge they seek.

Merely a half-mile from the slope, riders emerge from the trees—a ragtag company of five, tattered and unkempt, heading straight towards her. Her horse is swifter, but their reach when they fan out is too great to outmanoeuvre at such a short distance.

“Greetings, good sers,” she calls out to the riders as her fingers curl around the dagger at her belt.

They exchange bemused looks at being so deferentially addressed, but their puzzlement doesn’t last, replaced instead by sneers and jeers as they prance around her in ever-tightening circle.

_ Fuck, this can’t be how it ends. _

“What’s a lovely lass like yourself doing all alone?” says one, licking his lips.

“We can protect you,” simpers another.

“Thank you for the offer, good sers. I already have protection,” Regina lies. The men guffaw, unconvinced, emboldened. Regina’s voice is choked and too high when she adds: “The witch of High Heart.”

“The witch is an old wives’ tale, wench. You come with us instead. We’ve much more to offer than some old hag.”

She tries to ignore the obscene gestures accompanying the obvious threat, tries to keep a clear mind instead of letting the cloud of fear descend upon her and swallow her thoughts. Henry squirms against her, then lets out a heart-rending wail.

“Our lives are pledged to the witch,” Regina stammers. If the witch exists and chooses to punish her for the lie, so be it—just as long as she escapes this fate, she’ll gladly depart this world in another—any other, perhaps—manner. The men shake their heads, shake their rusty weapons, closing the circle around her. “Have my horse instead,” she blurts out as the stink of ale and sweat assaults her. “Please—as a token of my gratitude.”

“A horse won’t keep me warm at night,” thunders the most oafish of them.

She’s going to stab him in the gut if he comes any closer. She is. She’s going to stab and kick and punch as hard as she can to get away....or die trying. But Henry, oh, her poor, precious baby...

“Neither will she if she cuts your throat in your sleep,” his comrade objects. “You’ve seen what the Lord of Light can do through Thoros...the witch has the old gods behind her.”

Regina has no inkling who Thoros is, nor of the Lord of Light’s teachings—all she knows is she needs for strife to break out, for her captors’ attentions to be divided. She seizes the moment the men start squabbling, spurs the red mare forth, and bursts through the human barricade towards the hilltop.

They give chase at once.

“Come on,” she begs the mare, whispering encouragements into her ear as they dart towards the trees, with a howling Henry pressed tight between her and the horse’s neck. “Come now, faster!”

But Regina loses her advantage among the trees. The mare’s swiftness goes to waste as they weave between shrubs and stumps and trunks. They’re going to be caught, and then she’s going to be punished for her insolence, and Henry—what’s going to happen to him?

There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, she’s nothing to give them in exchange for their lives and no guarantee they’d spare them even if she did have more than a sorry few coins rattling in her pouch.

The red mare is her last and only prized possession, and—

—and she yanks at the reins and stumbles headfirst into a thicket of brambles. She slips from the horse’s back with Henry firmly in her arms, snatches the saddlebag and beats a path deeper into the underbrush, where at last she drops to the ground and crawls under a thornbush. Curling into a ball around Henry, she shushes him, rocks him back and forth even as her own clothes and skin tear and bleed.

Henry’s wails subside, whether from shock or the comfort of her closeness, she can’t be sure. The mare’s hooves beat the ground, her agitated snorts carry to them. Thrashing and rearing, she’s easy to find, and so the five men do.

Regina waits. She barely breathes. They’re out of sight, but still well within earshot. The storm of obscenities the men proceed to shout rings in her ears, and she’s the urge to cover Henry’s even though he’s much too young to understand. Will they look for her? Or will the red mare, her trusty companion, her tenacious friend, prove too small a sacrifice? Will Regina’s betrayal of the noble beast be for nothing?

It seems like hours before they give up and turn back, whispering about wood witches and wretched whores as they lead the defiant red mare away.

Regina lies on the rotting forest floor, horseless, helpless, aimless once more because even a cursed, abandoned hill isn’t isolated enough to offer safe haven.

Entirely spent, she falls asleep before dusk has fallen.

* * *

The forest is still pitch black when Henry’s giggle wakes her.

Aching from head to foot, Regina groans in a feeble attempt to move, encountering sharp thorns on her way—and no baby curled up against her chest.

“Henry...? Henry!”

She can’t see him—why can’t she see him?—and he could be in danger, how did he get away in the first place, why—?

Kicking and punching against the thornbush, Regina is vaguely aware she’s hurting herself but can’t feel a thing besides the swell of panic growing in her belly, in her chest, choking the life out of her.

Mere feet away, she finds Henry burrowed in a peculiar nest much too large for a bird, perfectly content, reaching for her with eager fingers.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she sobs, almost keeling over with relief. “Oh, Henry, come to mama…”

The nest moves, unfurls, and in its place are two bright eyes staring straight at Regina.

The wolf stands between Regina and her son, pinning her with a stare, and Regina is doomed, the dagger at her belt might take too long to get to, her best chance might be to lunge at the beast with her bare hands hoping for sheer dumb luck.

Henry gives a small sound of displeasure. A split second later, before Regina’s had the chance to make a move, he grabs for the wolf’s shaggy tail. 

Regina throws herself forward to shield him from an impending attack, bracing herself for claws and teeth to sink into her…

It never comes.

The wolf stands there, its tail still in Henry’s clumsy but firm grasp, and watches them with an understanding it should not be capable of.

Perhaps it’s the witch’s doing—an enchantment maybe, or perhaps the wolf is simply a tamed companion. Regina scrambles to her knees, scooping up Henry before she gently extricates the tail from his tiny hand with her own unsteady one.

The wolf pads over to the nearest tree and stops, looking back at them.

This is insanity. It can’t be what it appears to be. She can’t be considering this...can she?

The wolf takes another step, then turns to stare at her again.

Regina follows.

* * *

For hours she walks through a dreamscape under a charcoal sky in the footsteps of a black wolf with gentle eyes.

Henry’s peaceful slumber calms her; curiosity drives her forward.

Dawn reveals the outlines of a cottage far off the road—it bears the sign of an inn, if not the looks of one.

The wolf wags its tail once, its black coat streaked red by the humble light, and runs off.

A brief sense of loss overcomes her, but there’s no time to dwell—she’s dead on her feet, left with nothing but the clothes on her back, and she desperately needs to rest.

Regina knocks on the door with a trembling hand—exhaustion and fear, for she’s defenseless against whoever occupies the dwelling, entirely at their mercy.

The door opens before she’s withdrawn her hand, revealing a grey-haired woman clutching a crossbow.

“Took you long enough,” she barks before Regina collapses on the doorstep.


End file.
